Rep. Steve Carter has enjoyed more success this year for his efforts to overhaul governance of local school systems, but his proposal to require local votes on school board term limits was no match for the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee today.

One senator after another hammered Carter's House Bill 410 on the way to a 6-2 vote killing the proposal. Carter said afterward that he was "befuddled" by the opposition, given that he was only requiring that voters be able to choose in the Nov. 2 general election whether to limit board members to three four-year terms.

The bill is a major initiative of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the Council for a Better Louisiana who joined with Carter last year to push a series of changes to laws affecting local schools. The Louisiana School Boards Association has lobbied against the term limits bill throughout the session.

Senators, however, hit Carter with many of the same local control arguments he heard in 2009. "Why not make it all local officials?" Sen. Jody Amedee, D-Gonzales, asked. "Why just pick on school boards?" Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, offered the same critique. And committee Chairman Robert Kostelka, R-Monroe, asked, "Why not let them decide," presumably referring to local school boards, not local voters.

Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, noted that Orleans Parish has seen drastic turnover in its school board without term limits, mostly because members either voluntarily stepped down or met the wrath of voters who chose new officials. In other districts, Murray said, "Folks might be happy with their school board."

Voters already have voted in to impose term limits on school board members in Jefferson Parish and the city of Lafayette.

Carter framed his bill as a companion to House Bill 942, which is designed to give school superintendents more job security in part by forbidding individual members from interfering in personnel decisions and other day-to-day operations of a system.

"Let me go on record to say there are good school board members and there are good school boards," he said. But he added that there are numerous complaints around the state about board members stepping over the line of oversight into daily management.

Carter said afterward that he will pursue the issue again in future sessions. "Change is tough," he said. "Change like this is particularly tough. I believe in what we're trying to do here. We'll just regroup."

As for the micromanagement bill, Carter won't have to deal with Kostelka's committee. That measure awaits action in the Senate Education Committee.